The Kumaon Regiment

Badgam, 3 November 1947

Major Somnath Sharma went to Badgam with his left hand in a plaster cast, the result of an injury on the hockey field. Indian troops had been flying into Srinagar for only a week. Reports placed a tribal lashkar on the Gulmarg route, and Brigadier L.P. Sen sent out a patrol of two companies of 4 Kumaon with a company of 1 Kumaon to look for it.

The morning passed quietly. The citation puts Sharma's company in position south of the village by 1100 hours. At about 1430, movement appeared near the village. Sharma took it for a diversion and he was right: the main attack came from the west, and his company was soon under mortar fire from three sides. The citation estimates the enemy at 700. Other accounts give figures as high as 1,000.

He had been told to withdraw at 1500 and did not. With one hand in plaster, he filled magazines and passed them to the light machine gunners, and he laid out cloth panels to guide aircraft onto targets. His last message to brigade survives in several slightly different versions. All of them have the enemy about 50 yards away and Sharma refusing to give up ground: "I shall not withdraw an inch." A mortar bomb then landed among the ammunition beside him.

The forward platoons were overrun. Sepoy Dewan Singh Danu was killed attacking the raiders and received a posthumous Maha Vir Chakra. Indian dead that day are given as between 15 and 22, with 26 wounded. The citation credits the company with holding up the enemy for six hours, and by nightfall 1 Punjab had taken up blocking positions. Sharma's body was found three days later. It could be identified only by his pistol holster and the pages of the Bhagavad Gita in his chest pocket. He was 24. On 21 June 1950 he was gazetted as the first recipient of the Param Vir Chakra.

Russell's Brigade and the Hyderabad Name

The regiment did not carry the name Kumaon for most of its existence. Its older battalions descend from the forces of the Nizam of Hyderabad. Sources differ on where to begin the count: one common date is 1788, while another account starts in 1813, when Sir Henry Russell, the British Resident at Hyderabad, raised two battalions known as the Russell Brigade. Four more, the Berar Infantry, joined them, and these units formed the Hyderabad Contingent.

Kumaoni soldiers came in during the First World War. The 4/39th Kumaon Rifles was raised at Ranikhet on 23 October 1917. In 1923 Kumaon battalions and the Hyderabad units were merged as the 19th Hyderabad Regiment. It became the 19th Kumaon Regiment on 27 October 1945. The regiment recruits Kumaonis from the hills of Uttarakhand and Ahirs from Haryana and neighbouring states. Three Chiefs of the Army Staff came from it: Generals S.M. Srinagesh, K.S. Thimayya and T.N. Raina.

West Ridge and Rezang La

Two Kumaon battalions fought separate actions at opposite ends of the 1962 war. In the east, 6 Kumaon pulled back from Kibithu to Walong in late October. On 14 and 15 November it attacked Chinese positions without artillery or air support, took them, and could not hold them for lack of ammunition. On 16 November Lieutenant Bikram Singh's Delta Company, about 100 men, stayed on West Ridge past its 1100 hours deadline and fought until it was overrun.

In Ladakh, C Company of 13 Kumaon, an Ahir company under Major Shaitan Singh, held Rezang La, a pass at about 16,000 feet in the Chushul sector, in five platoon posts cut off from the rest of the defences. Terrain ruled out effective artillery support. The attack came at about 0500 on 18 November. Frontal assaults failed, so the Chinese came in from the rear with heavy fire on the platoons there. Nos. 7 and 8 Platoons were left with no survivors.

Shaitan Singh moved between posts in the open until he was badly wounded. When men tried to carry him out under fire, he ordered them to leave him. They placed him behind a boulder, where he died and where his body was later found. Accounts put the company at between 120 and 124 men. Most give 114 dead, and a Chinese source records five captured. The company received a Param Vir Chakra, eight Vir Chakras and four Sena Medals.

Rewari and Ranikhet

The Rezang La memorial at Rewari carries lines from Macaulay: "How can a man die better, than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of his fathers, and temples of his gods." Later decorations include Ashok Chakras for Major Bhukant Mishra of 15 Kumaon, killed in Operation Blue Star, and for Subedar Sujjan Singh Yadav of 13 Kumaon. Post-independence battle honours include Srinagar (Badgam), Walong, Rezang La, Bhaduria and Gadra City.

The Kumaon Regimental Centre is at Ranikhet. It also serves the Naga Regiment, which was raised at the centre on 1 November 1970 and is affiliated to the Kumaon Regiment for regimental matters.

At a glance

• Regimental centre: Ranikhet, Uttarakhand
• Motto: Parakramo Vijayate (Valour Triumphs)
• War cry: Kalika Mata Ki Jai; some sources add Bajrang Bali Ki Jai and Dada Kishan Ki Jai